3 Intelligent Ways to Use “Failure” In Your Training

In the second part of our discussion on training to failure, we talked about several very important things.

For starters, we cleared up the ambiguity surrounding the term “failure” and established a simple, clear-cut definition of the term.

Alas, we were all on the same page.

At that point, we went on to discuss the pitfalls of regularly training to failure, including the extreme stress these techniques place on the central nervous system.

The end result: overtraining, burnout, skipped workouts, extreme fatigue, and an overall lack of results. Not exactly the type of things you’d hope to generate by “giving it your all” in the gym.

And that’s the point−training hard without training SMART leads to nothing more than a bunch of futile, wasted effort.

That said, training to failure isn’t all bad, and in fact there are several “intelligent” ways to use the technique to get you the results you’re after, faster.

Here are a few of my favorites:

Method 1 – Gradual Failure

As the name suggests, with this approach you gradually move toward failure, achieving true failure only on the last set of a given exercise.

For example, let’s say you are performing dumbbell bench presses and are aiming to complete 5 sets of 8 repetitions. Instead of choosing a load that you can only do 8 times, be conservative and select a weight that you are able to complete 12 solid repetitions with.

Your first set of 8 will be easy, but with limited rest, your last set should be pretty difficult. Here’s what it looks like:

Set 1 – Somewhat Easy
Set 2 – Moderate
Set 3 – Hard
Set 4 – Harder
Set 5 – Very Hard (failure)

By the end of the five sets, you will have maximally stimulated the working muscles without overtaxing your central nervous system. This method can be used fairly regularly without adverse affects.

Method 2 – Periodic Failure

With this method, you “periodically” schedule periods of full-blown failure training into your training schedule.

For example, you may avoid training to failure completely for 3 weeks and then transition into a full week in which you train most sets to failure. This can be a very useful method to really “shock” the body and achieve rapid progress, but I would not use it more than 25% of the time.

Method 3 – Isolated Failure

With this method, you avoid training to failure during big, multi-joint movements (i.e. squats, deadlifts, bench, pull-ups, rows, etc) and instead only train to failure while performing substantially less demanding “isolation” type exercises (curls, leg extensions, tricep pressdowns, lateral raises, etc).

Typically, you would train a muscle to failure via an isolation movement only after big, compound work has already been completed−a phenomenal way to ensure maximal stimulation without the burnout.

How about you?  Do you have another “intelligent” way in which you use failure training?  Questions/comments about today’s post (or failure training in general) as we wrap up our discussion on the subject?

At least 130 comments and I’ll be back with more exclusive members’ content before you know it!

Joel

P.S.  As this post concludes our mini-series on training to failure, let’s ramp up the discussion below!